Quiet Lamentations
by MarcyJ
Summary: What are the minor characters of the story feeling and thinking during pivotal scenes? Get inside their heads and hear the unsung sorrows and joys that percolate there.
1. Eternally Esme

_A/N: This reflective is written from Esme's POV and takes place during the time while Alice and Bella are in Italy trying to save Edward, and the Cullens are waiting to hear how the situation unfolded: waiting to hear if they will ever see any of the three of them again. If you have not noticed, I really like writing from the minor characters POVs, getting into their heads is both challenging and enjoyable! I found writing this particular chapter to be particularly rewarding, and I hope you enjoy it!_

_A huge thank you goes out to my beautiful and talented betas: UnicornGoddess95, LindaRoo, ECABS, and Wendi. Wendi, in particular helped me smooth out some hang-ups I was having with the thematic elements of this piece. Thank you, thank you, thank you! _

**Eternally Esme**

The painful ticking of the clock laments each second as it slips away. I lift my eyes to study it again. Only two minutes have passed since the last time I checked. I sigh. This feels so wrong to me, so silly. When you are immortal, time becomes insignificant. We only even have clocks in the house so that Carlisle will arrive promptly to work, Jasper to his classes, and the rest of us to various appointments. We are usually blissfully unaware of the seconds as they slip by, but I am _painfully_ aware of time today. Each boom of the second hand reverberates through my cold body: the terrible rhythm almost making me feel as if my heart is pounding—something it has been unable to do for nearly a century. I cannot decide if I want the clock to hurry up, or to slow down. Somewhere, halfway across the world, two people that I love are racing against time to save my son, to save Edward. After over a century on the earth, Alice had predicted that his life—or his death—would come down to a matter of mere seconds. The irony of that is not lost on me.

My eyes habitually return to the clock face, but it divulges none of the secrets I long to know. As the minutes continue to pass, my hope begins to wane. The more time that goes by without the phone ringing—without Alice calling to give us the latest news— the less likely it becomes that the phone will ever ring; that anyone even survived to make the call. I give up staring at the clock and curl up into a ball onto the floor. My memories begin to flow. Time was not on our side, but it had not always been this way.

When had time become so vital to me again? How had something we possessed in infinite amounts suddenly become so precious? Humans, of course, have _always_ been fascinated with the concept of time. More clichés exist about the passage and value of time than any other subject: time is money; time waits for no man; time heals all wounds. I understand that these quotes resonate well with mortal beings—with those who time will _not_ wait for—but I recognize the fallacy in such statements. The last, at least, is an outright lie. I know firsthand that time does _not_ heal all wounds. Love can help you to recover, but time alone does nothing to quell the immense pain of true loss.

Time had been my foe once before. After the tragic death of my first son, I was forced to choose between a seeming eternity of ceaseless anguish or nothingness. I had chosen the void. The thought of time brought me to my proverbial knees, too weak to stand my ground, so I forfeited my time. I forfeited my life. At least, I attempted to. If the clichés were true, it would have all ended for me in that fall. It seemed a fitting way for me to surrender: in a descent. I was almost certain that my act would earn me eternal damnation; that I would fall all the way into the depths of Hell. That belief did not deter me, as the physical torments of Hell would be a welcome respite from the bitter pain that had taken up residence in my heart.

I flung myself from the cliff with the hope that everything would simply end—my life, my pain, and my fear. Ironically, my attempt at ceasing to exist resulted in my own immortality, and a truly infinite amount of time to deal with. Had I known this in advance, I most certainly would not have taken that plunge. To live forever—never being able to escape the pain of my loss—would be the ultimate punishment: one to be avoided at all costs.

At first, I thought that I _had_ fallen all the way into the depths of Hell. I felt the impact as my body broke—finally matching the state of my spirit—and then I slipped into blissful nothingness. It was what I longed for—the nothingness—but it did not last. The cruel Hell fires quickly replaced it. Not long after the searing pain tore through my body, I began to reconsider my grand gesture. Perhaps a few decades of intense emotional distress _would_ have been preferable to an eternity of this torment. Not that it mattered. Not that my actions could be undone. The pain was too intense, too strong to allow for anything else. It left no room for regret.

It felt like ages that my body had been burning when I first caught sight of him. At first, I assumed he was an illusion—this man from my past—for surely he did not belong in Hell. He attempted to calm me with constant whispered reassurances that it would all be over soon. I realized then that he must be another integral part of my punishment, a bearer of false hopes. To watch that beautiful, angelic figment spewing such venomous lies was heartbreaking. I identified them as lies, because Hell was not a temporary exile. I knew I would burn forever.

I was blessedly wrong. The figment—Carlisle—had spoken no untruths to me. The fires did stop burning, and my heart stopped beating. The life that I had tried so desperately to escape was over. Who could have guessed that in death I would find the happiness that had evaded me in life? In time, Carlisle and I grew to have the kind of love that I thought existed only in literature, the kind of love that certainly had not been present in my mortal life. Another, equally important gift had been given to me – I was now a Mother. Carlisle had saved another before me, a teenaged boy, my Edward. Just as Carlisle and I could not control the love that blossomed between us, Edward and I could not control the familial bond that flourished. He had lost his mother, and I had lost my son, but fate stepped in to give us each other. The unique harmony between the three of us felt more right than anything in my human life ever had. It hurt me immensely when Edward went off on his own—abandoning the peaceful lifestyle that was our common choice—but when he finally returned home, my heart was whole once more. Over the decades, our household expanded. First Rosalie, then Emmett, and finally Alice and Jasper came to live with us. We were a family, but still we were incomplete. Edward alone never discovered love—he was not even searching for it. I ached for the loneliness in his existence, though he seemed oblivious. I still held out hope for his future. There was plenty of time for him to find a mate; of course, there is always time for our kind. I thought time was no longer a problem.

Again—I was so very wrong.

Edward did not _find_ love—love ironically ambushed him. In spite of the unfathomable complications—and perhaps even because of them—Edward fell in love with a mortal. And not just any mortal girl, but the single human whose mere scent stirred within him a nearly unmanageable bloodlust. She was also the only person, mortal or otherwise, whose thoughts Edward could not hear. Bella's presence infused his existence with new meaning – made it a life. I hoped that someday she would become a permanent member of our family. I would have loved her— no matter who she was—if only for the changes she inspired in my dear Edward. After meeting her, it was impossible not to care for her even more. She was brave, kind, caring, and selfless. I would have been thrilled to love her as my daughter. But Edward threw his own happiness away. He claimed he loved her too much to endanger her, to "damn her" to our way of life, even though being with Edward was clearly all that she desired. I missed Bella, but even more, I missed who Edward became in the wake of Bella's love. Now that she was gone, he was not even comparable to the Edward of earlier years. He was hollow. Empty. I may not have his ability to read thoughts, or Jasper's ability to sense emotions, but I knew my son. Even though he was miles away, I still felt his pain, his loss.

It broke my already dead heart.

Alice missed Bella, too, but assured me that it was only a matter of time until Edward returned to her, until she became one of us. A matter of time. There was that word again: Time. It had regained meaning when Bella stumbled into our lives. There was only so much time for her, one way or another. Edward would _have_ to change her eventually, or let her die. Time was, once again, the enemy, and the enemy had just launched an attack.

In a convoluted series of events that I still do not fully understand, Edward believes Bella to be dead. He thinks the love of his life is gone forever, his only reason for being lost. I knew what he was going to do; knew before Alice confirmed it. After all, my own pain had once led me down the same path. He is searching to find an eternal escape from his sorrow. But if he finds that escape, he will bring unbearable heartache to the rest of us. Bella is not dead. I do not know exactly how—or why—this tragedy has befallen my family. I did not listen to the full explanation offered by Emmett as to why Rosalie has exiled herself to their room; the details matter little. All that matters now is what the outcome will be. Alice and Bella are racing to save Edward from himself. I pray they reach him in time.

I know that I stand to lose all three of them, and the thought is more than I can bear. This pain is far too familiar. I feel that I am suddenly back on the precipice of that cliff, poised to go over again. But this time, Carlisle will not be able to save me, he will be as lost and broken as I am. I know, instinctively, that this is a wound that no amount of time—not even centuries—could ever heal.

The ringing of the phone startles me from my somber reverie. I spring from the floor and run as swiftly as I can down the stairs to stand next to Carlisle. This phone call will tell me the time more clearly than that wretched clock ever could. In a matter of moments I will know whether it is time to rejoice, or time to mourn.


	2. Spinning Wheels

_This is the opening chapter to a fanfic about Billy Black, but it also fits nicely into the Quiet Lamentations series of minor character reflectives, so I have included it here as well. It is the perfect linking chapter to tie the Esme chapter in with the one that is coming soon, hopefully next week!_

_As always, a huge thanks to my Beta Readers ECABS and UnicornGoddess for their help and inspiration!_

_Spinning Wheels _

_The Reflections of Billy Black _

_"You're my friend Billy, but this is hurting my family." _

I heard Charlie slam the phone down, and I reluctantly lowered my own receiver into its cradle.

This was hurting _his_ family? I struggled unsuccessfully to keep the bitterness from my thoughts, to feel sympathy for my friend and his daughter. A part of me did ache for Bella, for the pain I had seen in her eyes this afternoon when Jacob had ended their friendship. It was obvious that she cared for my son, if in a very different way than he cared for her. I knew that she had been through a lot in the past year, but the bitterness stubbornly reminded me that it was all her own doing. If she had heeded my earliest warnings, she could have spared her heart--and Charlie's-- from this ache.

I knew that my son had delivered Bella from an empty existence. Charlie had been intensely grateful to Jake for his part in Bella's "recovery", but it gave him no right to call and threaten us tonight. He hadn't the slightest idea what was really going on: not with the Cullen's, not with his own daughter, and certainly not with my son. Understandably, with Jacob's departure from her life, Bella may have felt that she had lost her savior. I sympathized with that, because mine was lost to me as well. Jake had been the one and only constant ray of light in my life. When his mother passed, it was he, not I, that held our family together. When the illness overcame me and confined me to this chair, Jacob saved my spirit from being as broken as my body. Then, his sisters had moved away and we were alone. The house still felt full and alive even if it was only the two of us.

It did not feel alive now, or full of anything but bitterness and loss.

Jacob hated what he had become; again and again he called himself a monster.H1 I tried countless times to point out the silver linings of this storm cloud: he was stronger, faster, resilient to disease or injury, and he could truly help others now—especially Bella, even if he could no longer be present in her life. The arguments sounded good in my head, but my false optimism did not win Jacob over. _He_ had been the optimist, but that Jake was long gone; I missed my son. The young man who lived in this house with me was not my Jake: he was now just a shadow, the smoky remains of an extinguished light.

Jacob loathed H2 the vampires, he missed Bella, and he resented me. He accused me and said that I should have warned him that this might happen; that it _would_ happen when the bloodsuckers moved back to town. I argued that I _had_ attempted to warn him, but he ignored me, thinking me just a superstitious old loon. Even when he saw Bella and that leech at the prom—saw up close how unnatural he was—Jacob still did not believe. That had been one of my primary motivations in sending Jake to Bella with that warning: for him to _see_. I had not really expected Bella to listen to my pleas. If her stint in the hospital had not scared her away from those demons, what hope did an old man in a wheelchair have? But, I had hoped to open Jacob's eyes to the reality of her situation, the reality of _our_H3 situation. He chose to keep his eyes tightly shut. His choice, but I still felt guilty.

The creak of the front door startled me from my reverie. Jacob walked dejectedly to the fridge, sniffed a carton of Orange Juice, and emptied its contents in one large gulp.

"Find her yet?" I asked cautiously.

It was bad enough that the Cullens were responsible for what was happening to Jacob, without the added stress of the additional mess they left behind. There had been two new vampires in town since their unexpected departure. We were not certain if these new arrivals had been friends of the Cullens, but the pack discovered the male about to kill Bella Swan, so it was likely they were not. Still, their arrival here could not have been a coincidence, and it added to the deep hatred I felt for the Cullen clan. The pack had killed the male, but his mate was still somewhere out there preying on innocent people. Hikers were disappearing from the woods, and my son was out all hours of the night in the line of fire. However mature Jacob was, he was still just a kid. He should be working on his car, or getting into mischief with his friends. Instead, when I waited up late for Jacob to return home, it was not with the idle concern of your typical father, it was with the hollow terror of a man whose son had gone off to war. I believed in Jacob's abilities and I trusted in the pack to keep him safe. Rationally I knew that Jacob had every weapon in his arsenal necessary to keep him safe. Even so, it was hard not to let my mind conjure the worst possible scenarios when the cruel night stripped away my façade of strength.

Charlie had referred to the pack as a "gang." That statement alone had irritated me more than any of his other angry accusations. These boys were far from a gang; they were an army: soldiers conscripted against their will and forced to fight a battle that should have never been their own. They accepted that responsibility with little complaint. They fought, they sacrificed, and they suffered. I suffered with them.

"Any trace of her?" I questioned again. Jake still had not answered me.

"Nah." He was barely audible. "We're going to try again. Search a different area this time. I probably won't be back till morning…" He looked up at me then with hollow eyes that should not havebelonged to him. Something that he perceived on my face must have looked as wrong to him as he did to me.

"What happened, Dad? You look like Hell."

"So do you," I countered.

"Seriously. What's happened _now_?"

I gave up. There was no use in lying to Jake. "I just got off the phone with Charlie Swan. He informed me that law enforcement would be watching for your 'gang' to act up."

"Bella." He winced.

"She thinks you're in a gang?"

"I thought it was a gang, too, Dad…before. She's just worried about me. I _hate_ this! Did you see her today? I did that to her, _I_ did it!" Jacob's entire body shook with convulsions. He burst out the front door before he could lose control and obliterate our tiny home.

It was already too late, though. He had not phased within the walls of the house or broken any of our possessions, but our home was wrecked already; it had been wrecked from the moment Carlisle Cullen and his lot of leeches decided that Forks looked like a good place to settle down.

_"This is hurting my family,"_ Charlie had said. Maybe so, but it was destroying mine.


End file.
